Writing: The Ultimate Bullshit Detector
How Writing Exposes Our True Thoughts and Challenges Our Convictions
Writing is very important.1
What you learn when you take writing seriously: By seriously here, I just mean writing for purposes beyond making a grocery list or writing grandma a thank you for the pajamas. These are not unimportant tasks. Grandma deserves that thank you. Think of all she’s done for you! But the writing I’m talking about is writing that requires you to commit something to the page that documents a position or attitude you hold. Say, writing a term paper or writing a short story, writing a novel, or a blog post. Writing that is not only instrumental. I’m talking about writing that leaves a record of your thoughts. The sort of thing someone could cite if you ran for public office or applied to a degree program. I mean, also, writing for writing’s own sake.
A few critical lessons stay with me from grad school, and maybe the most important is that you don’t know what you think until you attempt to write it down. Laying bare your position on the page is different from just speaking your mind. Writing is easier to nail down than rhetoric. When something is written down, you can take a highlighter and identify the premises. Are they sound? Do they contribute to the likelihood of the conclusion? Maybe I can convince you with fancy words when I speak, but handing someone your written argument on the page reveals a cross-section of your thought process. This accomplishes two aims: First, you have to lay out a position with enough clarity and continuity of thought that you could persuade someone to adopt your view. And second, sort of an outcome of the first, you get to see, in real-time, whether you’re full of shit.
The two most common outcomes I experience when writing are: First, I find out that I don’t hold the view that I thought I did when I see it laid out before me on the page. Translating thoughts into writing exposes gaps and inconsistencies in our thinking. Second, I see how weakly supported my conclusions often are. Few things have talked me out of holding a position more than attempting to argue for it, only to find out that I’m full of shit.
And no worries. Friends, we’re all full of shit.
My rabbi taught me two principles, among other wonderful things, but these are the two I carry with me daily, like the Modeh Ani and the Shema. The first is to have strong convictions that are loosely held. And second: Ask yourself, “Am I full of shit?”
We’d get along in this world a lot better if people had strong convictions loosely held and they asked themselves regularly, “Am I full of shit?”
Writing presents an opportunity to accomplish both of these. When we write, we’ll fail unless we’re open to overturning our convictions. Read that again.
Writing helps us overturn our own convictions! Writing is one of the key tests to discover whether we’re full of shit.
Wow, do we have a lot of convictions that need overturning? You have an ethnicity, an identity, an upbringing, beliefs, values, a social community, and a steady stream of media on your phone, television, and podcasts. We have prior education, prior experience, and past relationships, and all of us have some hurt in us somewhere. Sometimes, that hurt is big enough to define us, and sometimes, overcoming the hurt defines us, too. This is the loosely held part. Loosely holding your convictions acknowledges that we’re dynamic and evolving, not static and rigid. Dogmatism breeds contempt for flexibility, but flexibility carries us through life. Resilience is flexibility concentrated.
I’ve maintained a blog for more than eight years, documenting my life with brain cancer. I moved it over to this platform some time ago, and I’ve written in fits and starts, tracking along with moments of joy and deep sadness. During the recurrence of my cancer this year, I’ve enjoyed exploring a different style of writing–more emotional and raw. I’ve also learned that living with this very serious thing for more than eight years has taught me a lot, and it’s also largely consumed my identity. This isn’t all bad. I’m very proud of the reputation I’ve carved out and the resume I’ve built serving our community. The recent realization, however, is that as I near the first year of treatment for this recurrence and as mortality again knocks at the door and enters my thoughts, I want more of me to show up.
Enter this newsletter.
Hi, I’m Adam Marc. I’m a disabled left, Jewish, pastor’s kid in the Midwest, living with brain cancer. All of that is true! And wow, has it given me a perspective on life. I'll continue to publish posts at Glioblastology, but I am reticent to bring my whole self, political ideology, and cultural Jewish experience to a platform I’ve built on education and peer support for the brain tumor community. I say this for two reasons–you could say, loosely held convictions: The support I hope to provide to our patient community is definitely politically dependent. Healthcare, disability benefits, social services, and more are deeply intertwined with living with cancer. So, in a real sense, my politics directly affect my life. But also, brain tumors have no political party. My responsibility to the community is to provide support from the lessons learned through years of long-term survivorship.
I am committed to the dignity of all people, and alienating some portion of my readership because we disagree on politics would undermine my values of community, trust, and relationship building. Regardless of your voting record, you deserve well-being and a good quality of life. I’ll continue to show up for my brain tumor community regardless of our voting record. But in this space here, I’ll explore more themes that I don’t want to cloud our community over there.
So this is me, and I’ll treat this newsletter more or less as a personal blog. Here, I’ll put my diverse and pluralistic experiences into essays that reflect on the current moment from whatever point of view my intersectional identities decide to present on any given day.
I’m happy you’re here. Sincerely.
xx. <3 -a.
When I say ‘writing,’ I mean this as expansively as possible! Handwriting, typing, texting, speech-to-text, writing through a translator, dictation, etc. Consider writing here to be shorthand for thoughtful, composed speech other than impromptu verbal expression. I want a definition that makes plenty of room for people who may be illiterate, disabled, cognitively impaired, or otherwise adapting.